Fanboys, Haters, FUD, and The Truth (TM)

This post is about the recent popularity of some "hater" and "sux" sites, the proliferation of "Linux myths" articles, real common misconceptions, and the truth about usability in Linux.

The Fanboys

As I mentioned in The Background, my first experience with Linux was being told "It can completely replace Windows." That was 1997. Windows 95 was difficult to configure. It broke all the time. It didn't actually have that much functionality. The Internet wasn't huge yet. Netscape was still soluble. At that time, I thik that Linux could replace Windows just because there was so little Windows could actually do.

Still, they were exaggerating. No, Wine couldn't run anything I threw at it. Linux was stable, but only until I tried to edit a configuration file and screwed it up, only to leave the system unable to boot. There were very few applications, and the only real desktop the first year was KDE1.

This type of fanboyism continues to this day, and I try to balance it out when I see it. Ubuntu cannot and -- more importantly -- should not replace every OS on the planet. No OS should be in that situation. The monoculture we've had for twenty years has really hurt computing.